This Was For Her
by happycookiie
Summary: "Beth wanted to get him here. This was for her." Beth Greene inspired Rick, and her being holed up in intensive care at the hospital gives him plenty of time to mull over intensity of just how much. So he makes the decision, in case she doesn't make it, to take Noah home.


**Author's Corner**

My thoughts on what happened in the three week time skip between the mid-season finale and mid premier. Brick with a hint of Bethyl (bc I'm a slut when it comes to shipping). Also I'm still in pain even though it's been nearly a year now, why must I live in endless torture. So here's some more pain to make you feel even better.

Review with your thoughts, and enjoy! :)

 **Summary:** "Beth wanted to get him here. This was for her." Beth Greene inspired Rick, and her being holed up in intensive care at the hospital gives him plenty of time to mull over intensity of just how much. So he makes the decision, in case she doesn't make it, to take Noah home.

 **Character(s):** Rick Grimes/Beth Greene.

 **Themes:** Tragedy, Angst, Family, Friendship, Romance (kinda).

* * *

 **THIS WAS FOR HER**

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Rick Grimes could always remember the first time he'd met Beth Greene, as little and unimportant as had it seemed at the time.

It wasn't really the moment they'd made eye contact… Or spoke their first words... It was more in the moments that came _after_ that. Small, thoughtless moments that he hadn't given much of a second glance to before.

 _Before_.

That was what he called it now. Before the prison… Before the hospital trade... Before the shooting.

It had all happened so fast, so unexpected after everything was going so well. Then Dawn had asked for Noah back, and Beth had gone and plunged a pair of scissors into the woman's neck, an action which resulted in her getting her head almost blown off. Rick remembered being surprised when she'd done that, jabbed Dawn with the scissors, that is. It had taken him completely by surprise, and the ruthlessness of her tone and expression had been honestly unnerving. A side of her that hadn't been there before emerged in that moment. Something dark crawled its way to the surface and clawed its way out. The monster that they all had tucked away inside... _Beth's monster,_ dug out and screeched. He hadn't even known she _had_ a monster inside of her, like the rest of them. She was always the sweet one, singing to spread cheer, smiling in the prison hallways, nursing Judith, and handing her back to him with a glowing smile.

The Beth he'd known wasn't the type to stab someone in the neck with scissors.

Perhaps that had changed when she'd fled with prison with Daryl—something he and the others hadn't even known until recently. In full honesty Rick had thought her dead the second the tank rolled in through the fences. Her, Judy, the kids and the sick... They were all gone, or so he'd thought at the time… But then.

 _I was with Beth._

He'd been surprised when Daryl had told him that. That she'd escaped, alive and well, and run with him through the woods of Georgia whilst everyone else assumed she had perished in the fire. Now, Beth was no Mika... But she was also no Daryl, so the archer's words of approval and _admiration_ towards her had surprised him too. There was something about the way Daryl spoke when Beth was concerned, that Rick established as curious. Quite curious indeed. He seemed to view her differently to the rest of them, to see her in a different light that was intriguing. _She's tough_ , was something he passed around quite often, like he actually meant it too. Daryl Dixon thought Beth Greene was tough, and that itself was curious enough.

Rick wondered what had happened for the most sceptical person around, who easily determined the physical strength of others and relied on that strength... To feel he could rely on Hershel's youngest daughter. Maybe it had something to do with the way Daryl's hand had reached instantly for his gun and sent a bullet flying straight into Dawn's brain. Maybe it had something to do with the way he'd knelt down beside her broken body and whimpered and whined like a lost puppy… Or maybe it was how he'd sat by her bedside after the doctor had wired her up to the machine and began working on her, and hadn't left her side since.

Rick thought he might understand Daryl's change in mind then, and an array of miserable emotions began to surface when despairing thoughts emerged. _What if she didn't make it? What if the injury was too severe? What if the doctor couldn't fix her…?_

 _What if she couldn't be saved after all?_

He knew that if that were the case, Daryl and Maggie would spiral down into a web of crushed souls and utter dismay, as well of the rest of them. Beth was one of them, they'd known her for what had to be going on two years now, and if she couldn't make it through this... If she couldn't…

A wave of nausea washed over him whenever he tried to finish that sentence in his head, and he found he never could.

It had been two days since the incident, and Beth now lay comatose in a hospital bed with her head all patched up and bandaged. Rick had spoken to the doctor, Steven Edwards, he was called. The man explained how he'd done everything in his power with the resources he had, and how the best option was to pray. _Pray_? But for what? A miracle? Those were pretty hard to come by now, almost impossible. Would a prayer be answered if they sent one? Or would it just be ignored like every other prayer being said around the world?

 _You're a man of God. Have some faith._

Any sliver of faith Rick still had had gone pouring down the drain the second the katana blade had sliced Hershel's neck. He'd pulled out his gun on the Governor and his invaders and thought of the times the Greene family sat around a table with their hands joined in circle, praying, and wondered if God was ever even listening at all.

Carl went in to see Beth whilst Rick and Daryl were there, and he sat on a free chair beside her dormant form. He asked the usual things, _Is she going to be okay? Can she make this?_ Things like that. But then he did something that nearly made what was left of Rick's rugged heart tear in two…

He took the sheriff's hat off his head, and placed it on top of Beth's.

Daryl looked at Carl strangely, but Rick stood frozen on the spot, feet rooted firmly to the ground. Then Carl looked up at him, and bit his lip.

"She gets to be in the club now, right?"

Rick was silent.

"Right, Dad?"

 _There's a new sheriff in town._

So Rick had done the one thing he knew Beth would have done if she were with them right now, when there were no signs of improvement in her state. He made the call, like the leader he was, made the call _for_ her.

"We're taking Noah home."

At first, Noah had protested, insisting that he wanted to be there when Beth awoke, but Rick countered by saying if his sanctuary was still intact, there would be a safe place for them all. For _Beth_. And the boy had had a hard time arguing back then.

The night before they were to make the journey to Virginia, Rick went into the hospital room Beth lay comatose. Daryl was asleep, after not having slept in so many days Rick could not remember. He took a seat on the opposite side of the bed from where Daryl was slumped over the covers, shoulders moving leisurely to show his even breathing. The man's hand was clasping Beth's, Rick noticed then, even in his sleep, and someone Rick felt as if he had intruded on a painstakingly intimate scene of sorts. The archer didn't stir when Rick reached out and brushed a lock of hair away from Beth's cheek, and her lashes brushed against the inside of his wrist as he did.

The hat was no longer on her head, Dr Edwards saying it had been effecting the wires and equipment or something, so all she had wrapped around her head now were wraps of bandage and plaster. The front part of the wrapping was stained with dark, sticky blood, but dried thankfully, hopefully to suggest the wound had closed.

He remembered the time he'd come to relieve her of Judith duty, and she'd laughed faintly saying she had a headache anyway.

 _You'll have one hell of a headache if you wake up from this,_ _Beth._

Cautiously, he reached down and took her free hand, clasping her limp fingers with his own. He brought it up and held it between both of his own, and squeezed. To squeeze some life back into her? For a sign? Or simply to tell her he was here? Unlike before, when she'd been all alone in this haunted hospital, being beaten, forced into labour, and battered.

 _You were brave, but I'm here now._

If she didn't make it out of this, he knew what he had to do. It was his job to _always_ know what to do. _All of us has a job_ , was what Hershel used to say, and Rick's was to be the pillar of strength for the group, no matter how much he felt he was crumbling. No matter how much darkness seeped into the room and blocked out all the light, obscuring his vision, sending him spiralling down into the depths of the black from which there was no return.

But Beth Greene had always inspired him.

She believed in him so fiercely, trusted his every word, and would follow him to the ends of the earth. She was softness that was a rarity now, and her eyes dazzled with a kind of light that just wasn't around anymore. Maybe that's what had drawn Daryl in, like a moth to a flame. Maybe he'd opened his eyes and seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and gone running. Chasing fireflies in a shop of electric bug traps. Running after the unshatterable _hope_ that was visible in her eyes. Maybe that's what Rick had seen too. The hope. The promise of a better future that was more than just death and decay. Perhaps Daryl had allowed that to be shown to him, and accepted it. _Believed_ in it, even. But the way Daryl spoke and acted around her made him wonder if that was really the _whole_ truth.

Maggie's soft sobs were audible from just outside, and Rick could hear Glenn's quiet words of comfort. The life machine Beth was wired up to made tiny little _blip!_ s every now and then, and Daryl's breath was rough even in his sleep. Those sounds were just what they were—sounds. Distractions. Signs of life. But there were still none from Beth.

Rick's fingers brushed the side of her face and came to rest upon the jagged scar upon her left cheek. _I'm sorry_ , he wanted to say, _I'm sorry I let this happen to you_.

 _I swore your baby girl would be safe with me_.

He hadn't even realised when the voice in his mind had started talking to Hershel, but he didn't complain. He _wanted_ to apologise to that man, to her, to anything. Anything that would take back this awful mistake and make it right.

He remembered what Beth had said to him then, many moons ago behind the metal fences. And he leaned in close and breathed them in her ear.

"We're still here, Beth. We're still here. An' there's gotta be a reason for that."

 _There's gotta be a reason_.

Whatever it was, he needed Beth to show it to him, like she'd shown it Daryl. He wanted to see what the archer saw so badly, so desperately, he would chase a million train tracks… bite out as many throats as he had to… and shoot the female officer before it was too late. But if he couldn't do all that, he would do the next best thing. The thing that Beth would like, a way of honouring her really.

He would fulfil her last wish. He would take Noah home. Because that was what Beth Greene had become, or maybe was all along. She saved people, metaphorically and literally, and she'd saved the Noah once already. So Rick could save him this time for her, as a favour, if you will. He owed her that at least. For saving Carol, and Daryl, and for being a beacon of optimism in this dark, dark world. For being _Beth_.

He could do this for her.

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End file.
